Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Minor Troubles

November 7, 2017

Tonight was cleanup time. After a quick trip to town for Operation Christmas Child supplies, Linda and I stopped by son Nathan’s house. The bridge at the end of their driveway got clogged with debris from the storm Sunday night, causing the creek to back up and flow through their yard. There was about two feet of water in their basement yesterday morning when I went over to help. By tonight, it had all subsided, draining through the cellar walls and floor into the surrounding gravel and leaving behind floating totes, soggy file cabinets, and quite possibly, a toasted furnace. 

Linda helped sort the things they had managed to carry upstairs, while I swept and carried debris to be thrown out. After only a couple hours, what had looked like a minor disaster was pretty well cleaned up.

Ever since we moved in here, out behind our house in the bend in the creek, a sizable gravel bank sloped down from the yard and extended about fifteen yards towards the far bank. We had a fire pit with lawn chairs underneath a canopy of trees at the upper edge of the gravel. It is all gone, leaving a three foot drop off to a pool of water three to four foot deep where the kids used to wade across without getting their knees wet. The shale waterfall at Sunnyside has been cut back about ten feet from where it had been. Who knows where those slabs are now? Though the water rose into our back yard, the cellar was only slightly more damp than usual. Who would have guessed?


All in all, it was a relatively minor matter. No lives were lost; the damage was minimal; it was more of an inconvenience than anything else. Last month hurricanes devastated Puerto Rico and Cuba, and caused widespread damage up the gulf coast of Florida. Before that, Texas was battered. Lives were lost, entire homes swept away. And just two days ago, a small Texas congregation was devastated by an evil man bent on murder. Our troubles are few, for which I am grateful. We continue to pray for and contribute to those who lost so much more, humbled by the grace of God which spared us undeservedly. 

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